TokenBox – Russia’s Crypto-Answer to Fidelity

The Russians are on a complete crypto-roll here. I don’t know a whole lot about this yet but the introductory (and bespoke) article posted on Russia Insider this morning makes this very intriguing.

Tokenbox, best I can tell is a crypto-version of a fund issuer like Fidelity. They’re using Ethereum to power the fund-creation system allowing your burgeoning Fund Manager to raise capital and buy/manage a pool of cryptocurrencies like they would any other stock or bond fund.

This is a big thing.

The fund’s model resembles that of classic exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which over the past 20 years have remained a popular tool for both institutional and private investors, primarily thanks to their entry and exit features. Just as with shares in traditional ETFs, The Token Fund’s investors buy the fund’s tokens, paying in Bitcoin and Ethereum. The token price depends on the asset size in the fund’s portfolio.

The solution stands out because the fund has a high liquidity and no barriers to entry. Smerkis said: “We have decidedly done away with the barriers that hampered consumers in the past.” The fund offers a simple, secure entry to the crypo-market with a pre-built diversified portfolio.

TokenBox looks like a full-service fund generating platform for investing in Cryptos for those that want/need to stay on the up and up legally.

I know this is kinda anathema to the whole cryptocurrency gig (and believe me, I’m all for decentralizing the world, especially government) but in order to take this thing to the next step there has to be a full-on gateway to bring wider adoption into play.

This is a platform to bring retail investors as well as big fund managers into the crypto-space at volumes that are not possible today. They are claiming full “Know-Your-Customer” compliance as well as local regulatory compliance (where applicable, which at this point is minimal).

I expect it’s biggest uptake will be in the markets where it is being developed, i.e. Russia. Again, because they along with other eastern European countries are further along the crypto-road than places like the U.S. or the EU.

This is where competition becomes a really cool thing. The U.S. and European governments have too much to lose in embracing cryptos completely. They know and understand the fundamental advantages. That inertia of trying to figure out how to control them while maintaining their current dominance is what is slowing down adoption.

No such strictures exist in these ‘non-aligned countries.’ And that’s why they are so quick to take up the crypto-mantle, as it were.

Since we all know that smart contracts are the path to cutting the middle men out of so many of these markets, building a platform which creates turnkey fund issuance and trading is ground-breaking.

What cryptocurrencies are doing is leveling the playing field between places which have poor internal capital handling and legal frameworks and the advanced economies. They will climb that ladder very quickly.

I’m not proselytizing here. I’m merely relaying what I see as a deficit in the current crypto-environment. Whether or not these guy have what they claim to have is a whole ‘nuther thang.